Human Relations
by SevenOverThree
Summary: The date had been a terrible mess. But - what if it had been different, if only by a little bit? What would have happened? Short story, DxJ


**DISCLAIMER**: JTHM is the sole property of Lord _V_azquez

**AUTHORS NOTES**: A sort of alternate path for the comics, for Devi and Johnny's date. A more Hurt/Comfort thing, ending in happy faces for both sides.

Written on a whim after reading some of the singular editions of JTHM, and a certain Die-Ary entry from the inside-cover of comic number four.

* * *

"_I keep dreaming of her;_ _I dream that she never stopped – that she made it all dark_"

* * *

"_Please_, be silent before you say something to spoil the mood." Johnny said, leaping at her, one knife-clasping hand raised up high. Devi almost didn't notice him fly towards her – she'd been preoccupied with getting the door open. However, she'd heard the sound of his movement, and turned to look – and saw him racing towards her.

In a burst of adrenaline, she lashed out with a kick; a high one that reached his face, hitting his mouth and probably breaking several teeth in the process. The maniac attacking her stumbled, automaticly dropping the knives to shield his face – but it didn't achieve much. Devi quickly attacked again, this time aiming for his nose – a satisfying 'crunch' telling her that she'd hit her mark. Johnny stumbled backwards further, this time unable to keep his balance, and falling to the floor, moaning in agony.

Despite his show of pain, Devi didn't stop. Pulling the pain-wracked man up by his hair, she threw him towards the mirror nearby – it shattered into too many pieces to count, and Devi stumbled backwards, tripping and falling to the ground as she watched Nny fall, himself; cracking his jaw off the dresser with a sickening sound that signified something was no longer in one piece. Devi's mind screamed at her to get up, to run away and never look back, but she was too in shock to follow the commands her mind gave her body.

Johnny was twitching – the fingers of his left hand jerking quickly in and out of a fist for several minutes before it stopped. Silence echoed through the room for a little while longer, and then he moaned – Devi knew at once the the maniac man was waking, but for some reason, couldn't bring herself to stand up, and leave.

"_S-st...op..._" She heard him whisper, his voice nearly inaudible from the pain he must have been experiencing. Devi let out a quick breath. He wanted her to stop? Stop what, hurting him? If she were able to stand, she would have – would be back at her own house by now, safe behind the door with dozens of locks and a couch keeping it shut. "_Do...don't_" Don't? Devi blinked. Johnny sounded as though he was pleading. Pleading for her to stop hurting him. Broken jaw, kicked in the mouth, broken nose, face smashed into a mirror... She breathed in quietly as she realized just what she'd done – she hadn't needed to do all that, had she? The man was skinny; such brutal, damaging attacks hadn't been necessary, right? But he'd tried to kill her – she'd been running off of panic and adrenaline; brutal attacks were to be expected.

Devi jumped, jarred from her thoughts as Johnny coughed roughly, choking on something for a moment, his body wriggling just slightly as he attempted to move.

"Just... s-stay there!" She yelled, Johnny's vague struggles halting. "Don't move!" He obeyed, laying there, slowly bleeding out from the wounds in his face. Both she and him were silent for a moment before Johnny took in a shaky breath, speaking once more.

"_Don't... s-stop_." Devi's eyes widened. Johnny wasn't telling her to leave him alone – he wanted her to _keep_ punishing him. To continue beating him up, pummeling him into a bloody pulp.

"Why?" She asked, voicing her confusion. Again, Johnny coughed roughly moaning for a moment before replying.

"_So much... noise._" Devi flinched, scooting backwards when Johnny shifted his body, moving from laying on his chest to his side, then his back. "_Even... alone. Never quiet. They're never quiet, Devi_." Devi narrowed her eyes, confused, but curious. Who was this 'they' Johnny was talking about?

"I don't understand..." She told him, feeling that she could stand now – she was much calmer now, could probably stand and run if she wanted to. But Johnny wasn't acting right. Not that he was before, but now that she thought on it, why those words, that particular statement? '_Immortalizing the moment_'... that didn't sound like the normal declaration of death a murderer usually gave their victims. Were she to take away the tone, the situation, everything - and just say it to herself, it almost implied something similar to wanting to take a photograph.

"_The voices_!" Johnny yelled, breaking Devi's train of thought. A sob escaped his throat, and he spoke again, his pain filled voice now laden with depression. "_They... they h-ate you... Want you gone... They w... won't let me be happy, never happy never pleased..._" The man drifted off, sentence morphed into a string of unrelated words and sounds before he coughed again, returning to his attempt at answering her. "_They're so... quiet now._" He muttered, taking in another breath and continuing. "_Never... been this quiet... Never_." He began to shift again, shivering as he slowly moved himself to face her, his eyes locked on hers. "_Please..._" He muttered, not taking his eyes off of her. "_Make... them stop... for good._" One more choking breath, and he spoke a final sentence before falling silent, his only movements being that of his breathing. "_Make it all go dark..._"

"You... you want..." Devi couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence – Johnny was asking her to kill him. He wanted to die, wanted to escape his 'voices'. And he wanted _her_ to do it. Sure, she despised him for what he'd tried to do, but could she really kill him? Was she that desperate to be rid of him?

"_Please_..." He muttered "_finish it_..." Devi was still for a moment, trying to figure out if she was desperate enough to take his life – _he'd_ taken lives; many lives. Technically, were he to be judged by a court, he'd have multiple life sentences. But with this new information in her head, should she do it? He seemed to deeply regret his actions – regret them enough to want to die.

When she thought back to his choice of words before attempting to kill her, she couldn't find any sort of malicious reasoning behind his choice to kill her. He had said that he was trying to 'immortalize the moment' – and that sounded like he had, in some dementedly crazy way, been trying to keep that happiness that she had given him by killing her; preventing her, or anything else from taking that happiness _from_ him. He wanted to be happy, so he decided to make it impossible for displeasure to come by ending her then and there. Scary, and terrifying, but... it must have seemed the thing to do, to him.

He wasn't sane – had headvoices that hated him being happy. 'They' wanted her gone. Johnny wanted to be happy. When she mixed the two together, it seemed that the moment had been very much out of the mans control.

"Johnny..." He wasn't moving much – just laying there, watching her. Waiting for her to end him. Part of her wanted to – wanted to kill him, give him his just deserts for what he'd tried to do. But would that be revenge, or mercy? The man _wanted_ to die. Wanted to be free of the voices that plagued his mind. "I... I can't." No. She couldn't. She would never be able to stoop so low as to intentionally take someones life. Johnny let out a sob, tears mixing with the blood still trailing from his wounds. She wasn't entirely sure if he was crying because she wouldn't 'free' him, or because she was technically showing her attempted murderer mercy.

Devi sighed, finally obeying one of the commands that the still-terrified part of her mind was throwing at her, and stood. Only, instead of running away, leaving him to bleed out, alone – she walked towards him, shoving a hand underneath him, holding onto him, and hoisting him up. He was terrifyingly light. Did he never eat, or was he somehow naturally this thin?

He didn't resist her attempts to lead him outside. In fact, if anything, he seemed eager to obey her. And strangely, she found herself no longer scared.

"C'mon..." She muttered to him as she led him down the road, in the direction of her apartment. "Let's go someplace... someplace..." She struggled to find the right word, surprised when Johnny finished for her.

"_Someplace... free... of _this_._" He gestured backwards, in the general direction of his house. Devi swore she could hear the shack growling.

"Yeah... Far away from that..." She was beginning to think that whatever plagued Johnny's mind was confined to that house – he'd never acted in the ways he had earlier when he was out in the city, talking with her. Never. "Someplace far away, where we can fix you." In more ways than one.

And if she was able to keep Johnny's... _demons_... at bay merely by being with him, and away from that house, then so be it. Johnny was _worth_ the risk of angering those demons.


End file.
